


Whispers in the Dark

by g33kg1rl



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Defeat, Implied Relationships, M/M, Season/Series 03 Spoilers, clone shiro - Freeform, crushed dreams, maybe? - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-05
Updated: 2017-08-05
Packaged: 2018-12-11 09:38:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11711724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/g33kg1rl/pseuds/g33kg1rl
Summary: but when Shiro said his name, it was all wrong.





	Whispers in the Dark

**Author's Note:**

> this is so unedited I'll probably be embarrassed with it in the morning. For now, enjoy my sadness. (andthis is my own personal opinion on why I'm also in the 'its a fake shiro!' group - and why Keith seemed just as sad during that scene.... like he wanted this to be true and so happy.... and then got sad... and yet still told the truth and made a promise to Shiro about finding him as many times as he had too....

Whispers in the Dark

 

People change. Keith knew this all too well. After Shiro disappeared the first time, he remembered watching the news stations flash 'pilot error' across the screen. He listened to the Garrison leaders try and cover their asses over a failed mission without explaining exactly what had gone wrong. He remembered screaming in the Captain's office, fists curled, face red, desperate to know - and not receiving any information.

  
Keith had changed.

  
Keith had quit because something broke inside him. Shiro told him as much, how he had changed. How he had grown while he had been gone. Shiro had changed once he had returned, and Keith had told him so in return. But they hadn't changed so drastically that relearning each other had been a chore. It had been so natural, such an easy thing to do. Whispers in the dark had led to soft smiles and softer eyes.

  
Keith loved his eyes.

  
Even the second time Shiro had gone missing, it had only been for a few hours, but Keith had found him, running across an entire world to find him. He would always find him.

  
Though they had had an awkward conversation about leadership, that hadn't stopped Shiro from reaching out to him, taking his hand, accepting Keith's refusal to look him in the eyes as his way of acknowledging how much he hated that idea. They had curled close to each other, waiting for the others, and whispered to each other beneath a crackling fire.

  
Even then, Keith had known they changed a little, they had both grown as adults, accepting hard truths though denying it emotionally because the idea of losing one or the other just couldn't happen again. He couldn't lose Shiro again - and Shiro had looked at him and told him without words that he understood, that he would do anything he could to try and not disappear on him again, but plans needed to be made just in case.

  
Keith remembered his eyes boring into him, and he memorized those eyes so he could remember that look forever. Gray eyes boring into him, saying more than any whisper could, conveying love and promise more assuredly than any oath. Shiro's eyes held him captive - and then his voice wrapped him in a blanket of harsh realities and an undertone of pleading need. They talked about it - a subject Keith was always quick to scoff at. He much preferred silencing Shiro, or changing the subject and making him laugh; a sound so rare it curled his toes. But he was gone, again, lost for months, lost for so long he had fulfilled his promise - though Keith knew he had made it harder for everyone involved with his resistance.

  
He lay awake at night, hearing nothing, seeing dark eyes sear into his soul, and wish to hear a stuttered breath, the sound a snore, the curse of a man working out late into the evening. He wished he could hear anything other than his own choked breathes. Shiro's voice resonated with him, deep inside. He could still hear him when he thought about it, like the man's vocal cords had turned his bones into a tuning fork. He knew every dip of every word, every nuanced hitch of his breath before or after he spoke. Keith missed his voice, and he missed the way he looked at him when he spoke.

  
So as he stood there, staring at his friend, his partner, his everything - Keith stood there, and his stomach flipped hard.

  
People changed, sometimes reinventing themselves overnight; but not a person's voice. Not like this. Shiro spoke, and it felt hollow somehow, wrong. Too calm, too formal. Shiro sounded fake. He sounded as a robot might holding all the correct information and regurgitating it at the proper times.

  
Shiro looked at him the same, he touched him and held his attention with his presence... But his voice made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end.

  
People change. They cut their hair, they dress different, they even force themselves to think different because trauma scars a person down to the soul. Keith understood this, had expected it after Shiro had been gone for so long - but staring down at him, he couldn't say he knew who this man was.

  
Swallowing hard, Keith nodded, clinging to the hope Shiro was alright that maybe he sounded funny because he was recovering from his desperate chase through space. But it didn't sit well with him. It wasn't right. But how could it not be right?

  
Keith gripped his elbow tight, listening to him talk, listening to the vague answers Shiro gave him in a voice far too mellow and evenly paced. The words didn't dip or fluctuate like usual. Shiro's expressive brows hardly moved. His eyes stared at him because that's what was supposed to be done. His voice was too clean. Too new. He knew that voice, knew those eyes... and he hated himself for doubting.

  
People changed, sometimes overnight, sometimes after trauma. He knew that the first time Shiro crashed back on earth, and had expected it again. He himself had changed so much during the years apart. So why couldn't he accept this drastic change in Shiro now?

  
Because...

  
What human could survive seven days out in space without food or water? Humans could survive a week without food - but not water. After three days a human body began to fail without water. And yet, somehow, he could almost accept all that. He could believe Shiro a superhero... but when Shiro said his name, it was all wrong.

  
Keith wanted to be wrong, he wanted to have realized he was angry at Shiro for leaving him again; but hearing the most recent whispers in the dark... his relief wasn't real anymore. He had lost Shiro all over again with polite words and a dull tone to his name.


End file.
